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Are preferential home ownership policies (zoning, tax breaks, NIMBY, bailouts etc) fair?
I'd say that's a matter of perspective. My determination of "fair" is first and foremost influenced by how the outcome affects me.
(Dude, no matter how many times you say it, nobody wants you to build a tiny home in their neighborhood. Zoning is in place for a reason. I'd hate to look out my bay window and see that my neighbor has subdivied his half-acre so that you and your friends can build minimally-occupiable sheds in what was once his back yard.)
It IS scalable. Move to where housing is less expensive.
It is NOT scalable where the vast majority of Americans live, which means your tax system is not fair for the vast majority of Americans - unless you want a government subsidized relocation program.
I'd say that's a matter of perspective. My determination of "fair" is first and foremost influenced by how the outcome affects me.
(Dude, no matter how many times you say it, nobody wants you to build a tiny home in their neighborhood. Zoning is in place for a reason. I'd hate to look out my bay window and see that my neighbor has subdivied his half-acre so that you and your friends can build minimally-occupiable sheds in what was once his back yard.)
So life's not fair. What else is new?
Yup, that's my number 1 reason what's "fair" to most people.
I'd say that's a matter of perspective. My determination of "fair" is first and foremost influenced by how the outcome affects me.
(Dude, no matter how many times you say it, nobody wants you to build a tiny home in their neighborhood. Zoning is in place for a reason. I'd hate to look out my bay window and see that my neighbor has subdivied his half-acre so that you and your friends can build minimally-occupiable sheds in what was once his back yard.)
So life's not fair. What else is new?
Aha, so you acknowledge that most Americans are classiist?
Indeed, it is. The U.S. does not have a homogeneous population.
??? Houston is the only place of significant population of which I am aware, where home ownership is scalable. The vast majority of Americans do not live in Unashack territory.
I'd say that's a matter of perspective. My determination of "fair" is first and foremost influenced by how the outcome affects me.
(Dude, no matter how many times you say it, nobody wants you to build a tiny home in their neighborhood. Zoning is in place for a reason. I'd hate to look out my bay window and see that my neighbor has subdivied his half-acre so that you and your friends can build minimally-occupiable sheds in what was once his back yard.)
So life's not fair. What else is new?
Should government reflect the unfairness of life, or should government be fair?
1. It benefits "me"
2. It doesn't benefit me but doesn't harm me (neutral)
3. As long as it benefits society (and 1 and 2 apply), than I support it.
That's "fair"
I disagree with the idea that it's a liberal thing. People on both sides of the spectrum, conservative and liberal alike, think in terms of "it benefit's ME" and in the last two ways. That thinking is not exclusive to liberals. Alot of people think like that, period.
One cannot live without obligation; it is the price we pay, so to speak, to live in civilized society. Still, our acknowledgment of the social contract is, for the most part, one-sided; that is, we readily acknowledge our own right of entitlement, but we are not so ready to recognize our debt to society. Laurence Sterne, I think, expressed it most cogently in one of his sermons thus:
For none of us liveth to himself. Romans xiv. 7.
“To the honor of human nature, the scripture teaches us that God made man upright - and though he has since found out many inventions, which have much dishonoured this noble structure, yet the foundation of it stands as it was, - the whole frame and design of it carried on upon social virtue and public spirit, and every member of us so evidently supported by this strong cement, that we may say with the apostle, that no man liveth to himself. In whatsoever light we view him, we shall see evidently, that there is no station or condition in his life, - no office or relation, or circumstance, but there arises from it so many ties, so many indispensable claims upon him, as must perpetually carry him beyond selfish consideration, and shew plainly, that was a man foolishly wicked enough to design to live to himself alone, he would either find it impracticable, or he would lose, at least, the very thing that made life itself desirable. We know that our creator, like an all-wise contriver in this, as in all other of his works has planted in mankind such appetites and inclinations as were suitable for their state; that is, such as would naturally lead him to the love of society and friendship, without which he would have been found in a worse condition than the very beasts of the field. No one therefore who lives in society, can be said to live to himself, - he lives to his GOD, - to his king, and his country. - He lives to his family, to his friends, to all under his trust, and in a word, he lives to the whole race of mankind; whatsoever has the character of man, and wears the same image of GOD that he does, is truly his brother, and has a just claim to his kindness. - That this is the case in fact, as well as in theory, may be made plain to anyone, who has made any observations upon human life. - When we have traced it through all its connections, - view’d it under the several obligations which succeed each other in a perpetual rotation through the different states of a hasty pilgrimage, we shall find that these do operate so strongly upon it, and lay us justly under so many restraints, that we are every hour sacrificing something to society, in return for the benefits we receive from it.”
- Laurence Sterne, “Vindication of Human Nature,” Sermons, (1760)
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